


Beggin'

by smoothsailing



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Grigor is so gay, Laver Cup, M/M, Zverev is not gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 03:01:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16109414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smoothsailing/pseuds/smoothsailing
Summary: Grigor wants to prove a point, but Sascha won't let him.





	Beggin'

It’s been like three days since he got to Chicago, and the first thing he’s discovered is that Grigor Dimitrov never, ever shuts up; the second thing is that Grigor Dimitrov doesn’t give a single shit about what’s coming out of his mouth. Like, at all. Sascha showed up to the Laver Cup a bundle of nerves fresh of last year’s win, with the weight of the expectations pressing down on him so hard he thought—still thinks—he might stop breathing. Grigor sauntered in all bright laughter and easy confidence, cheerfully daring anyone to question his presence, his  _belonging_ , and just as cheerfully chatting up everyone and anyone who would listen, filling their ears with his candid nonsense. He decided Sascha was his favourite victim very early on.

It isn’t Sascha’s fault he was the obvious target. Well, technically, it isn’t Grigor’s fault, either, but that’s beside the point. The point is that this little shit just says whatever the fuck and damns the fallout, especially so when they’re alone in Sascha’s hotel room after the gala.

Point in fact:

“No woman alive can suck a cock better than me.”

Sascha nearly coughs up protein drink all over his sheets. They were just discussing the important philosophical dilemma of whether or not pineapple belongs on a pizza and watching awful sitcoms, and Sascha just turned his back on the TV for one fucking second.

“What? It’s true,” Grigor insists, when Sascha says nothing beyond wordless spluttering and the occasional cough.

“Okay, then,” says Sascha. “Whatever you say.”

Grigor sniggers, like he can tell he’s caught Sascha off guard—of course he can, and of course he has. You can’t just say that to a guy while he’s drinking. Or… ever.

“In fact, I guarantee,” Grigor says, “that I am a better cocksucker than any girl you’ve ever been with.”

It occurs to Sascha that Grigor might be fishing, testing the waters in his own overenthusiastic, blunt-edged Grigor way, and once he’s figured that out it becomes a lot easier to navigate this new conversation.

“No way,” he says.

“Yes way,” says Grigor, grinning. “Hands down. I am the  _champ_.”

Sascha rolls his eyes and goes to check his phone on the nightstand, but Grigor’s not done.

“I’ll prove it to you.”

“Dude,” Sascha says, barely missing a beat because this is the direction this whole line of statements was heading to begin with, obviously, “I’m not gay.”

“So?” says Grigor. He turns off the TV and lobs the remote at one of the armchairs in the corner. “Didn’t stop a lot of guys in juniors from…” He waggles his eyebrows and flashes that dumb grin. “ _Sampling.”_

“Jesus Christ,” Sascha says.

“We’re men and we have  _needs_ , see.”

“I’m going to bed. Please don’t blow me while I’m sleeping.”

Grigor laughs, but Sascha catches the edge of disappointment in his expression.

\--

He can’t stop thinking about the offer the next day—but more than that, about the circumstances surrounding it. Grigor’s been pretty upfront with him about his preferences and orientation and the fact that he  _really_ likes sex, and maybe that’s the part that Sascha is stuck on. Maybe it’s caught him off guard how open Grigor is about it, about everything. How unabashed. How he was able to just make a move like that, get turned down, and then change literally nothing about his mood or behaviour. He’s still the same rosy-cheeked, broad-smiling asshole he’s always been.

Except maybe he catches Grigor looking, once in a while. Though really, he might have been doing that before, too, and Sascha just didn’t notice.

Later, Grigor catches Sascha catching Grigor looking, and for some reason, Sascha is the one to blush.

\--

After the first day of matches, they put on a bad action movie in Sascha’s hotel room and fall asleep on the same bed. Sascha likes it so much that he doesn’t say anything.

He’s surprised that the somewhat intimate proximity doesn’t get weird, but then again, Grigor hasn’t said a word about his little proposition since last night, and it’s almost like it never happened, except inasmuch as the whole evening has been burned into Sascha’s brain, never to be fully scrubbed out. And not for the reasons he expected.

\--

“So…” he says the next day. They’re alone in Team Europe’s locker room, after Sascha’s won his match, playing with their phones, and he’s trying to figure out how best to broach the subject. He goes with blunt. Grigor digs blunt. “You’re gay, right?”

Grigor side-eyes him. “Just a little bit, Sascha.”

Sascha can’t read him, doesn’t know if he’s offended him somehow, so he doesn’t react. Grigor seems to take this as non-understanding and rolls his eyes.

“Yes, dude,” Grigor says. “Super gay. I thought that was pretty obvious, what with the offer to suck your dick?”

It’s the first time Grigor’s acknowledged it. Sascha can feel his cheeks heating up, and he looks away, down at his phone, which is safer. “Well, I dunno,” he says. “There’s not just gay and straight. There’s like a… spectrum.”

He can hear the click and slide of Grigor depositing his phone on the bench. Full attentiveness does not bode well.

“That sounds like research, Sascha,” Grigor says, sly. “You did research.”

Sascha did research.

“Maybe.” He decidedly does not look at Grigor.

“Why were you doing research?” Grigor says. Sascha is pretty sure his face matches the garish red of Team World’s kits. He curls up a little bit and focuses very hard on his phone, even though he hasn’t absorbed anything on the screen since he initiated this ill-advised line of discussion.

He only has himself to blame for this. Grigor probably thinks he’s an idiot, was probably joking the whole time, and now it’s weird and it’s Sascha’s fault. He should never have asked the question. Should never have even opened up Google.

“Have you been thinking about it?” Grigor says then, and Sascha vanishes into his poker face. “Do you want it?”

Sascha will not react. He won’t. He will sit here on this bench, staring at his phone and not giving Grigor any signals one way or the other, until the end of time if need be. He will be unreadable, because he absolutely cannot read Grigor right now, probably because he refuses to look at him. God, he’s such a loser.

“No,” he forces himself to say, but it’s so small and low and petulant that he knows it’s the worst lie ever told.

Grigor doesn’t say another word. He’s totally silent for a few minutes, and then he picks up his phone and goes back to fiddling with it, until eventually Sascha leaves the locker room and heads out to the court.

\--

In the evening, Grigor doesn’t mention it. They go back to their usual routine, cheering on their teammates, and Sascha slowly lets his guard back down.

Sascha is always a little bit handsier after they’ve won; he can recognize that in himself. He has an arm draped over Grigor’s shoulders as they get off the elevator at the hotel, and he doesn’t protest when Grigor responds with an arm around his waist.  Grigor’s laughing about God knows what, and that grin is disarming. Sascha laughs, too, even though by the time they stumble across the threshold and into his room, he’s so focused on the hand at his hip he almost walks into the doorframe.

Which, of course, is when Grigor tightens his fingers on the fabric of Sascha’s sweats and uses the leverage to turn him, pin him to the wall and hold him there. Grigor drops to his knees before Sascha can even think, and then looks up through his lashes, gives Sascha a moment to respond, to deny, to escape. Just one moment.

Sascha is riding high on adrenaline and victory. That’s his excuse for curling his fingers in Grigor’s hair.

Grigor  _grins_  and yanks Sascha’s sweats and boxers down to his knees in one movement. The time for denial or escape is long done; Grigor opens his mouth on Sascha’s balls and licks and licks and licks all the way up to his foreskin and  _fuck, oh, shit_ , right, he’s twenty one and he  _can_ actually get this hard this fast. God. He’s halfway to a rock already and his fingers are tightening in Grigor’s hair and  _then_ Grigor’s lips, his fucking lips, close around the head and  _what is his tongue doing?_

“Fuck,” Sascha says out loud. His head falls back against the wall and he struggles against the involuntary noises threatening to rumble out through his ribs, but now Grigor is moaning around his cock way down low and it’s vibrating and…

“Don’t stop,” he chokes out. Grigor just grins up at him as he kisses his way down the shaft and further, and Grigor grunts and whines like he’s the one getting his balls licked into next week. One of Grigor’s hands brushes Sascha’s hip, steadying him, while the other pumps up and down, establishing a rhythm. Sascha clenches his jaw, but a solitary whimper escapes him. Grigor takes this as a signal to put his mouth back on Sascha’s cock, thank fuck, and the wet warmth envelops him from head to root to  _oh my god._

Grigor swallows. Sascha looks down with his mouth slack, his breath leaving him completely when he realizes he can’t see his own dick anymore. It’s vanished down Grigor’s throat and the pressure is overwhelming. It’s like all the blood has left his brain and the only thought there’s still room for is  _want want want want want want want._

The muscles in his belly clench and he pitches forward at the middle, trying desperately not to buck his hips and mostly succeeding, thank fuck. He doesn’t want to be completely horrible and put Grigor off the idea of doing this again.

Grigor pulls off almost all the way and sucks at the tip again and Sascha’s fingers tighten in Grigor’s hair. Grigor gives a little grunt of approval at that and Sascha brings his other hand up, carding across Grigor’s scalp as his mouth does wicked things to Sascha’s cock, his balls, even the skin of his inner thigh and the space right below and between his hipbones, which he hadn’t really pegged as a sensitive area but  _apparently._  And then, sometimes, Grigor will swallow him whole again, nose right up against Sascha’s abdomen and Sascha loses his damn mind.

He fails to bark out a warning when his orgasm hits him hard and sudden, but Grigor just sucks and swallows and slows his pace as Sascha shakes and bites his tongue and tries to figure out what to do with his hands.

\--

It happens again the next evening. And Sascha can’t blame it on the victory high or curiosity anymore because he was looking forward to it all day, more than he really should have, anticipating the things Grigor does to him in the dark. Even after Laver Cup, the image of Grigor’s lips and tongue around his cock makes its way into his fantasies, becomes the surest, most reliable catalyst when he jacks himself off in his own room at home, and that’s the point when he thinks maybe he should be having a panic, or at least a crisis, but it’s just so  _good._ And Grigor… Grigor loves doing it. Like, for real. Not only is he really, spectacularly good at sucking cock - Sascha had to concede that one right off the bat - but he  _loves_ it. That first night, Grigor had been polite and just a tiny bit awkward underneath the swagger and vindication—he had boasted, giggled through the requisite  _I told you so_ , and then disappeared into the bathroom to finish himself off. The second time, though, Grigor got so worked up just kneeling there at the foot of the bed, while Sascha tried to stay lucid, that he lost control entirely and jacked himself off onto the carpet while his face was pressed into Sascha’s skin, his mouth hot and open on the shaft of Sascha’s cock. He didn’t apologize, but he turned beet red. Sascha didn’t care much; he got off a second later, mainly on Grigor’s lost little wail, and the vibrations it sent through his groin.

 

\--

He starts to really notice, after that, the way Grigor looks at him now, the way he grins and giggles when Sascha roughs him up in public like nothing’s changed. It’s in Beijing that Sascha discovers that he can destroy Grigor’s composure at his stupidest whim, and it’s a little bit intoxicating because he knows that power extends behind closed doors, into the shadows where the cameras can’t follow them. He gets as much of a rush breaking Grigor’s poker face in an interview as he does… well.

The  _things_  Sascha finds he can do to Grigor without even touching him.

\--

He doesn’t like making noise during their… whatever they’re doing, but when Sascha  _does_ let out a breathy grunt, when he just can’t hold it in anymore, Grigor always responds viscerally—sucks a little harder, tugs at his own cock a little faster—and Sascha isn’t sure Grigor knows he’s doing it, and it’s like this fucked up feedback loop because Grigor’s reactions to Sascha’s reactions are themselves tightening the coils of want in Sascha’s gut and some nights it feels like it wouldn’t matter what they were actually doing, they just feed off each other until they burst.

After a month or two, Sascha finally notices he’s paying attention to Grigor’s responses, has been for a while, and has never actually proactively  _done_ anything about it. He has this epiphany while Grigor is crowding him against a wall, and he doesn’t think, he just slides his hand down into Grigor’s shorts and curls it around his dick—and Grigor goes out of his mind. He buries his face in Sascha’s chest, thrusts blindly into Sascha’s hand and makes all these noises that might sometimes be words: “ _Yeah_ , Sasch, oh god, oh fuck, oh, oh,  _oh_ ,” and Sascha gets it. He gets it. He understands.

He panics.

 

\--

They’ve both got a day off before their first round match and Sascha doesn’t answer any of Grigor’s texts. He knows it’s really dumb, knows he’s probably gonna run into Grigor at practice tomorrow, knows it’s probably better not to avoid him and make things really weird and that when things are really weird it’ll be his fault.

\--

He doesn’t know how to tell Grigor that the thing that scared him off wasn’t the physical act at all but his own attachment to it: the sudden epiphany that he could get off on Grigor’s pleasure just as much as Grigor got off on his, and the implications of that… because that sounds shitty any which way you think about it. There shouldn’t be anything crisis-inducing about being into Grigor, and yet here he is, having a crisis. Crisis-having. He saw this coming, honestly, and he feels like a bad person.

“I’m an asshole, okay?” he finally says. It’s a struggle to get the next bit out, and maybe he mumbles, but: “I liked it too much.”

“You…” It dawns on Grigor, and Sascha watches it happen. “You’re having a gay panic.”

“There’s a spectrum,” Sascha can’t help snapping. He regrets it until Grigor sniggers and scoots closer to him. Sascha hunches his shoulders. “Maybe? Kind of. I just didn’t think…”

“You’re a douche, Sascha,” Grigor says matter-of-factly, patting him on the thigh. “But at least you know it.”

Impulsively, Sascha grabs Grigor’s extended wrist. Grigor stiffens all over, like a struck dog, like he’s expecting another round of rejection. That wasn’t Sascha’s intent to begin with but the reaction resonates, bounces around in his head until he decides to do something really stupid to make sure Grigor understands, to make sure he never expects that again.

Sascha can’t quite force himself to make eye contact, but he gets the words out all right. “So, now I gotta make it up to you, right? Say I’m sorry?”

Grigor says, “Uh."

 

Sascha is gripped by the sudden fear that he’s read everything wrong and ruined them and that Grigor doesn’t want him anymore because he’s an asshole, and he snaps his hand away from Grigor’s wrist as he’s thinking this because his stomach is dropping under the weight of humiliation.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I thought you still… I’m an idiot. Sorry.” He makes to get up and leave, to go back to his room, to go anywhere that’s not here, really, when Grigor catches him by the shoulder and keeps him glued to the edge of the bed. That’s when Sascha finally makes eye contact, finally looks right into Grigor’s face and finds it wide and open and a little bit shocked and a bunch of other things Sascha can’t confidently identify.

“I do still,” Grigor says, and Sascha frowns at him. “I really, really do still. I thought  _you_ didn’t. You know, ‘cause you had a gay panic. And didn’t answer my texts. And avoided me all day.”

Sascha gathers up all his courage, peels Grigor’s hand off his shoulder, and sinks to his knees on the floor. He scoots between Grigor’s tree-trunk thighs, pushing them apart as Grigor sucks in a sharp breath.

“I’m an idiot,” Sascha says as he grabs the waistband of Grigor’s shorts and pulls, “but you’re an idiot, too.” He shoves the shorts to the ground, and Grigor’s boxers, too, before hoisting Grigor’s knees over his shoulders and promptly realizing he has no idea what to do next. He feels another surge of anxiety: Grigor is so good at this. What if Sascha isn’t? What if he fucks up for real and Grigor realizes he’d rather not bother with him? But in his hesitation, Sascha chances a look upward and Grigor has pitched back to lean on his hands and he’s staring down at Sascha like he’s got a goddamn king or an angel or something between his legs, and Sascha figures,  _fuck it_.

He thinks about the things Grigor does to him that make him crazy, and he presses an open-mouthed kiss to the inside of Grigor’s thigh.

Grigor says, “Ohmygod.” And then: “Oh my god, dude, you don’t have to apologize like… I mean if you don’t wanna…” Sascha drags his mouth across Grigor’s skin, closer and closer to Grigor’s dick, which is definitely not half-heartedly trying to convince him not to feel obligated.

“I wanna,” he mumbles. “That’s why I freaked out, remember? Too much wanna.”

“Right,” Grigor spits out. “Right. Shit, oh fuck, oh  _fuck._ ”

Sascha goes for it, licks Grigor’s cock from base to tip. He expected it maybe to taste like something, but it’s just skin, and pretty soon Sascha isn’t paying attention to that anymore.

Grigor’s elbows buckle; he flops properly onto his back, going loose and pliant as his whole body rattles out a groan. Sascha closes his mouth around the head of Grigor’s cock and looks up to catch the reaction; he’s deeply gratified to see Grigor’s fist tightening in his sheets, to hear him sharply pull in a breath. Emboldened, Sascha reaches under and around Grigor’s thighs to hold him steady and sucks. His reward is the tightening of the muscle under his hands, the feeling of Grigor’s heels digging into his back.  _Yes._

After that he mostly stops thinking; can’t hold onto a thought, really, when he’s drowning in the way Grigor sounds and feels and moves. He only really tracks his own movements so he can associate them with Grigor’s reactions: once he flattens his tongue on Grigor’s balls, and Grigor arches his back and makes this hollow broken noise that hooks into something in his gut, so he slips his hands under the arch of Grigor’s spine, above his ass, and does it again. That’s when the babbling starts.

“Oh, my god, Sascha,” Grigor says, somewhere between a whisper and a whine. “Fuck, that feels so good.” And normally—that is, before—Grigor’s mouth was always too well occupied for this, but it makes so much sense for him to be a talker. He never shuts up anyway, and as usual, Sascha decidedly doesn’t mind.

“ _Fuck,_ Sascha, your mouth,” Grigor hisses. “I—unggh.” Grigor derails when Sascha takes slips his hands lower and grabs handfuls of his ass.

Then he starts right back up again: “Yes, yes, yes, do  _that,_ oh fuck. Your hands. Your mouth. I wanted it so bad. You have no idea.”

Sascha can’t resist pulling back a hair. “I think I have an idea.”

“Jesus Christ, don’t fucking  _stop._ ”

Sascha laughs, and squeezes Grigor’s ass when he brings his mouth back down. Grigor whines, his hips rolling probably involuntarily, and Sascha tries to follow but it’s fucking hard so he brings one of his hands up to pin Grigor to the bed by his belly, and that gets him to stop moving.

“Agh, sorry,” Grigor says, the words coming out short and choppy. “I’ll stay still. Put your hand back.”

Sascha’s brain isn’t quite firing on all cylinders so it takes him a few seconds to comply, and a few more seconds to realize that he has both hands full of a gay man’s ass, which is just a weird thought to have when one also has a mouth full of a gay man’s cock. It really is better when he doesn’t think. Thinking gets in the way of the sounds Grigor makes.

“Yeah, Sasch, oh my god,” Grigor breathes. “Your fucking hands, fuck. Been thinking about them.”

Sascha hums, and tries to imitate that thing Grigor does with his tongue, and then tightens his fingers for good measure and Grigor arches off the bed, hissing, the sound sliding off into a laugh because Grigor is Grigor.

“Fuck, I’m gonna come,” Grigor says. Sascha can’t wait; he sucks insistently at the head of Grigor’s cock and listens to his noises get harsher and more desperate. “I’m gonna come, Sascha, Sascha, oh god, I can’t believe,  _you_ , your hands, god I want your fingers in— _fuck._ ”

Sascha miscalculates just how close Grigor is and gets half Grigor’s load in his mouth and half on his face, but he cares less than he thought he would. When Grigor leans up to look at him, he curses and falls back on the bed like he’s gonna come again, so Sascha figures it’s probably worth it, and anyway, he’s already thinking about something else.

He leaves Grigor on the bed to recover while he washes his face and rinses his mouth; it didn’t taste awful but it’s not something he wants to have fermenting in there. When he comes back, Grigor already has his pants back on and he’s just sitting on the edge of the bed staring into space like he’s shell-shocked. As Sascha approaches, Grigor looks up at him and his face is flushed; there’s a smile tugging at his mouth but it’s not quite real yet.

“Sorry,” Grigor says.

Sascha frowns at him. “Sorry for what?”

“Well, I mean,” Grigor says, his flush deepening as he looks away. “I got… I said some stuff, and then you left. It just felt really…”

“It’s fine,” Sascha says. He sits on the bed next to Grigor, and Grigor eyes the not-exactly-flagging lump in his pants.

“Really?” Grigor says, smiling for real.

“What, you think I’m gonna be surprised a gay guy wants something in his ass?” Sascha says. “I already had my stupid douchebag panic, idiot.”

Later, when Grigor tugs Sascha’s boxers off and opens his mouth on Sascha’s cock, the little shit disturber says, “It’s what got me off, you know.”

Like an idiot, Sascha grunts, “What?”

“Your fingers,” Grigor says. “Thinking about if you’d just open me up…”

“Ungh,” Sascha replies, and he’s not sure how much of his brain shorting out can be blamed on the familiar heat of Grigor’s mouth. He’s thinking about Grigor before, arching up off the bed, shouting because he’d imagined Sascha’s hands doing filthy things. He’s thinking about the reactions he could get if he did those things for real.

\--

Sascha’s heart is pounding so hard when he starts to ask that it chokes him up, turns him bright red, he’s sure, and Grigor’s looking at him like he’s expecting something terrible and getting ready to make light of it so he gathers his courage and pulls Grigor in, tentatively slides his fingers across the crease of Grigor’s ass through his shorts. Grigor’s breath hitches, and all Sascha has to force out is, “We could… I-If you want, I could try…” before Grigor is smiling and laughing and promising to take care of everything.

\--

Grigor is some weird combination of patient and anxious when he hooks his knees over Sascha’s shoulders and shows him what to do. It’s awkward, obviously, but they’ve had each other’s cocks in their mouths tonight already and there’s probably not much they could do to make either of them want to stop. Anyway, Sascha can feel Grigor shaking a little; the vibration runs through the heels pressed into his back, just the way he likes, and he thinks everything will be okay.

It takes him a few minutes to get used to the sight of his index finger disappearing into another person’s body - another man’s body – but, as usual, Grigor’s reactions carry him through any discomfort he might have felt; the first time he crooks two fingers just so and Grigor jerks off the bed as if shocked, cursing and then laughing, Sascha feels the familiar vicarious coil of gratification tighten in his groin.  He makes it his mission to find that spot again, and then again, and again, as he sluggishly licks at Grigor’s cock and soaks up Grigor’s constant stream of yelps and groans like he’s starving.

Sascha takes a hold of himself if only to relieve the unbearable aching pressure and then both of his hands start to move in sync, one on his cock and one in Grigor’s ass and Sascha moans, long and loud and unlike himself. One of Grigor’s hands flies to his crotch and the other tightens in Sascha’s hair and Sascha just knows it’s because Grigor can’t help himself.

Sascha isn’t sure who comes first, only that when he can think again he’s already pushing Grigor up the bed and crawling up to kiss him. He realizes they’ve never done this before, despite everything, and maybe he’d been afraid it would somehow make things weird for who knows what dumbass reason—but it’s okay. It’s more than okay. Grigor’s hands go everywhere, on his back and his sides and his hips and in his hair. Sascha shoves his arms under Grigor’s shoulders so he can lean on his elbows, bracketing Grigor’s head, and drags his lips across Grigor’s, over and over. Grigor kisses open-mouthed and wet, with too much tongue, just like Sascha knew he would, and it’s fantastic.

\--

Sascha thinks about the kissing thing a lot the next night, thinks about why he’d never done it before, wonders if he was kind of still panicking a little bit, afraid to break down that barrier because kisses are supposed to mean something, right? And what did that one mean, anyway?

\--

The next time they’re alone in a hotel room in Paris, Grigor opens his mouth on Sascha’s neck while one hand snakes into his boxers, and Sascha takes Grigor’s jaw in both hands and tilts it up so he can suck on Grigor’s tongue and swallow the sounds he makes. They get each other off slow and lazy—it’s midday and they had just practiced; they’re supposed to be resting for their matches later on—and afterward Grigor sprawls half on top of Sascha, one of his legs between Sascha’s knees. Sascha is kind of dozing off, tracing his fingers casually along the lines of muscle in Grigor’s back, when he thinks about something Grigor said months back, and wonders.

“Did this ever happen before?” he asks, words slurring a little with afterglow and the sleep that threatens to take him.

“Hmm?”

“You said in juniors you…” Sascha starts, and screws up his face as he tries to think of how to phrase the question he wants to ask. “Other guys. Did they ever…?”

Grigor’s grin broadens slowly; he kisses Sascha’s collarbone and shifts, pressing himself minutely closer to Sascha’s body.

“Nah,” Grigor says through a yawn. “You’re walking way further down the Kinsey scale than any of those losers.”

Sascha doesn’t know what to do with this information, but Grigor is breathing like he’s already asleep, so he figures napping is a good start.

 

 

\--

When the Tour Finals come around, Grigor is so fucking sad he can’t go defend his title that it almost distracts Sascha from his own excitement of competing in London. When he gets to London, he texts Grigor a couple of times, things like  _you had a good season, Grigor_ and  _ull get em next year_ , the obvious, and then, after deliberating for about an hour and erasing it at least half a dozen times,  _i dont ever wanna see you sad like this_. Ten minutes later, as Sascha wonders if he’s just added to his problems like an idiot, his phone buzzes on the table where he’s moping over lunch, picking at a plate of spaghetti. The text reads: _you better defend that title for me._

Sascha chuckles and sends  _yeah... you know i will,_ before he can worry about how it might look that he just replied at the speed of sound, but he gets a smiley face back just as quick.

\--

They text during the off season, and Skype a few times when they can both find some privacy because they seem to have an unspoken agreement that other people shouldn’t be around to spectate, even if they’re not talking about anything especially private. Sometimes they talk about tennis, and sometimes they talk about their disparate social lives away from each other and the tour, and sometimes—okay, yeah, sometimes they talk about sex, a little bit. It’s not Sascha’s fault if they associate it with each other by now.

Sascha isn’t even sure how they get on the topic, but one night - while Grigor is sprawled in bed wearing nothing but boxers - he opens his stupid mouth and says, “What does it even feel like having stuff up your butt? Why do people like it?”

Grigor laughs at him so hard he looks like he might pop something, and Sascha makes out something about what he’s missing.

“It’s fucking great, Sasch,” Grigor says eventually. “Like, it’s weird, but then it gets good? And then it gets great.”

“You’re the worst, that makes no sense.”

“You could just try it and find out for yourself.”

Sascha scrunches up his face. “No, I dunno,” he says. “It’s just, you like it.” He pictures Grigor’s head thrown back, his mouth open, body twisting as Sascha curls his fingers—it’s a fucking great memory, prime jerking off material—and tries not to blush.

“It’s  _nice,_ ” Grigor says, like he can see into Sascha’s brain and knows exactly what he’s remembering.

Sascha fights the urge to stick out his tongue like a six year old. “How… What does it even feel like having a dick up there?” he asks, since they’re on this topic of conversation anyway and the odds of him broaching it again later are  _not good_. “I mean… it has to be a stretch?”

To his surprise, Grigor looks pensive. “Yeah,” he says. “The one time I tried that, it didn’t go so well.”

Sascha frowns. “The one time?”

Grigor shrugs and looks away; Sascha recognizes the gesture as defensive, and predicts the disarming smile that comes on its heels.

“Don’t even,” Sascha says, before Grigor can derail. “You had a bad one time?”

“Well,” Grigor says with a wince. “The guy didn’t really… I mean, I wasn’t. He got off, and that was the end of our magical time together.”

Sascha sees red. He has to remind himself to take deep breaths, that he doesn’t even know who this guy is and that he will probably never have a chance to punch him in the face.

“I can see you, eh,” Grigor says. There’s a real smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. “You’re making up revenge fantasies now, stop. It’s in the past. It’s done. I’m not, like, beating myself up about it or anything. It just hasn’t been worth the trouble since then.”

Sascha grumbles and mopes, because whatever, that’s still not fair.

“I think I’d wanna try again if it was you, though,” Grigor says, and Sascha jerks, stares at Grigor glowing on his laptop screen, watches him turn bright red and stammer and backpedal, something about maybe not  _that_ far down the Kinsey scale.

“We could try,” he says abruptly, and that shuts Grigor up pretty quick.

\--

Sascha would like to say he forgets about it until next season, but he doesn’t. Sometimes he still thinks it’s weird how bad he misses Grigor, misses his stupid laugh and his stupid taste in TV shows and, you know, all the touching; other times, he just can’t muster up the willpower to give a fuck. That second state of mind becomes more common as the off-season goes on, and by the time he’s in Melbourne, he’s worked himself up full of hope and anticipation at the first time Grigor knocks at his door.

\--

A few days before the Australian Open starts, Sascha has the day to himself. He texts Grigor to grab him a chicken sandwich from the cafeteria and come up to his room. He devours it while Grigor watches from a distance, amazed at how fast he’s finished his sandwich. Once he’s done eating, he shoves Grigor - laughing, of course he is – on his bed and gets lost. He missed this. He missed it so much. He slides his tongue into Grigor’s mouth, swallows Grigor’s noises when he pushes their hips together, sighs when Grigor’s hand sneaks between them.  They lose their clothes pretty quick and Grigor straddles Sascha’s hips and opens his mouth on Sascha’s body—hipbones, belly, ribs, nipple, shoulder—as his skin is exposed, piece by piece.  Sascha hisses and pushes his hips up when Grigor wriggles down to pants level, one hand clenched in his blanket, and lets out a whimper when Grigor takes his cock in hand and parts his lips for it. The sound feeds Grigor - Sascha knows it by now - and maybe he loosens his control a little bit, cradles Grigor’s head in one hand, lets himself mumble  _yeah, Grigor_ and  _missed this._

Grigor doesn’t let him finish that way, not even close; he crawls back up Sascha’s body and asks, “Did you mean it?” kind of quietly, and Sascha tries to unscrew his brain and think about what he means. It hits him suddenly, his impulsive off-season offer, and, because words are hard, he drags Grigor down to kiss him, flips them over, and rolls his hips, grinding his erection against Grigor’s, which…  _wow._

He has lube and condoms stashed in his bedside table, and he rolls off Grigor only briefly to retrieve them. “You’re gonna have to show me,” he tells Grigor, even though  _duh_ , and Grigor just grins at him.

“You already know how to do the first part,” Grigor says, casually stroking himself while Sascha positions himself between Grigor’s thighs. “Just, more with the fingers, and then—”

“I know  _that_ ,” Sascha says, more petulantly than he meant to. He hooks Grigor’s knees over his shoulders, the way he knows they both like, and slicks up his fingers with lube. “I just…”  _I’m afraid of fucking up and I want you to feel good and you deserve more than some guy who won’t even make sure you get off and..._

He laps at the base of Grigor’s cock instead of talking, and slides his index finger inside, slowly, slowly. Grigor sighs, hands falling away to run through his own hair, and then Sascha’s. Sascha keeps his mouth working, just gently licking and sucking as he introduces a second finger and starts to move, in and out, curling up. That’s where he falters, the first time.

Grigor feels him hesitate and says, “Scissor ‘em.” Sascha looks up and Grigor is demonstrating for him, and Sascha does his best to imitate. He thinks he’s on to something when Grigor hisses, “Yeah, like that,” and flops backwards.

“Keep going,” Grigor tells him. “Just like that. Open me up,  _fuck yeah._ ”

Sascha drags the pads of his fingers against Grigor’s prostate then, and he’s very proud of himself. Grigor curses, loudly, a  _lot_ , and Sascha has to hide the world’s stupidest grin against the skin of Grigor’s thigh. Grigor’s heels are digging into his back now, which might be Sascha’s all-time favourite feeling, and Sascha’s confidence builds. He speeds up the movements of his hand, sucks insistently at the head of Grigor’s cock, scissors his fingers wider and more frequently until Grigor is begging, “Another, another one, give me another one.”

He complies, and Grigor sucks in a long breath as Sascha grinds in to the third knuckle. Sascha gets a little rougher as Grigor gets louder. He can’t help it; he grips Grigor’s cock and tongues Grigor’s balls and Grigor clenches around his fingers, whining.

“So good, that’s so good,” Grigor keeps saying, and Sascha thinks,  _yeah, I know._  He’s trying not to hump the mattress, but Grigor’s writhing and moaning and might as well be fisting Sascha’s cock for all that it’s driving him crazy.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” Grigor says. “You gotta stop, Sascha, I’m gonna come, you gotta…” He trails off into a wail as Sascha pulls back, withdraws his fingers. Sascha bites down on Grigor’s hipbone and then sits back on his heels so he can wipe off his hand - his t-shirt making a noble sacrifice for the cause - and when he looks down at Grigor again, his jaw goes slack: Grigor has his head turned, pressed into the sheets, his eyes screwed shut and his teeth clenched. He’s breathing like he’s just done fifty laps, and his hands are stubbornly twisted in the sheets, like the act of not touching himself is killing him.

Sascha feels like he’s floating; he flattens one hand on Grigor’s stomach, stroking around to his hip. It brings Grigor back to him, a little.

“You gotta get in me,” Grigor says. “I need it, c’mon.”

Sascha’s hands shake as he rolls the condom on, but not as bad as his body shakes as he pushes in, bit by bit, and tries to process how it feels. He tries to hold himself up on his left arm, but it gives out and he drops down onto Grigor’s body, which turns out to be pretty okay because Grigor locks his ankles around Sascha’s hips and wraps his arms around Sascha’s back, kissing him sloppy but ardent until Sascha bottoms out. Then Grigor tilts his head back, keening, and Sascha scrapes hit teeth against Grigor’s throat.

He tries to stay still, because he isn’t sure what Grigor can take right now and he wants it to be  _good_ , damn it, but his hips keep shifting by themselves, just tiny little movements that at once relieve the unbearable pressure in his cock and amplify it.

“You can move,” Grigor says. “You can—ungh.”

Sascha draws out and pushes in slowly, despite every instinct in his entire stupid brain  _screaming_  at him to go fast, get off and get it done. He keeps his eyes open, stubbornly insists to himself that Grigor is going to come first—he can’t be far off, it can’t be long now,  _look_ at him—and rolls his hips. He focuses intently on how his body is moving, fights the urge to thrust hard and fast by studying Grigor’s responses; Grigor draws a sharp little breath when Sascha grabs at his hips, whimpers high in his throat when Sascha quickens a little, growing more confident that he isn’t hurting Grigor, that this is fine, he’s doing fine.

He’s getting a cramp. He sits up on his heels and tries the new angle and it’s better, but there’s still a twang in his lower back and he can’t—it’s stopping him from—

“Can you roll over?” he says. Grigor takes a second to process that he’s being actually properly spoken to and asked to take real action in the real world, and then nods and wriggles onto his stomach. Sascha pulls Grigor up by the hips and sinks back in and covers Grigor’s back with his body because it’s just begging for it; he struggles for a way to balance in this position until Grigor settles onto his elbows, and Sascha, in a fit of genius, hooks his arms under Grigor’s and grabs at Grigor’s hands so he can tangle their fingers together. Sucking insistently at the spot below Grigor’s ear where his jaw meets his throat, Sascha starts to thrust again; he’s unclear on which action draws a fresh moan, so he persists with both.

“Fuck,” Grigor says. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, so good, I’m gonna—harder, come on,  _fuck_.”

Sascha lets himself speed up, puts a little more force into his movements, and Grigor’s noises blend together into a prolonged whine, punctuated occasionally with a shouted curse. He knows exactly what Grigor means, he thinks: he’s rumbling in his chest, without meaning to, because it’s  _so good_  and it’s bleeding out from his cock into the rest of his body, warm and sharp and building, building, building.

“Sascha, I’m so—you gotta touch me.”

 _Yes_ , Sascha thinks, and extricates one of his hands from Grigor’s so he can snake it under their bodies and wrap it around Grigor’s cock. Grigor all but shouts when he starts to stroke, quickly now, in time with his accelerated thrusting; Sascha’s hips stutter and he can feel his orgasm at the edge of his awareness. It’s coming, he’s coming. He thinks he cries out but he isn’t sure, all he knows is the warmth of Grigor’s body and the feeling coursing through him in unrelenting waves. He’s shaking through the end of it, and Grigor’s groaning and Sascha still has Grigor’s cock in hand and it’s still hard, he hasn’t come yet—Sascha bites down on Grigor’s shoulder even though that’s the worst apology ever and pumps his hand, grinds his hips forward even though his own cock is softening already.

Grigor makes a broken sound and comes hard, thank fuck, pushing his face into the mattress and his hips desperately up and they’re still holding hands, Sascha realizes, because Grigor’s grip tightens on Sascha’s fingers until he’s sure he’ll lose circulation. Sascha kisses Grigor between the shoulder blades and slips out of his shuddering body, and waits for him to settle before drawing back to throw the condom in the trash and grab a real actual towel for them to clean up with because there’s only so much he’s willing to subject his shirts to.

He gently turns Grigor over and wipes him down, and then gets distracted by the rise and fall of Grigor’s stomach and kisses it, then kisses his way up Grigor’s body until he finds his mouth and kisses that, too, slow and deep and warm.

“Well, fuck,” Grigor says when Sascha finally pulls away. Sascha thinks that about sums it up.

\--

That was pretty fucking great, Sascha decides, so he’s confused when Grigor withdraws, takes a long time to answer his texts and doesn’t fill them with corny emojis. Outwardly, it doesn’t look like anything has changed, but Sascha can’t even corner Grigor to kiss the answers out of him, and that’s the most damning evidence of all, honestly.

\--

Two days later, they’re alone in the locker room and Sascha watches Grigor putter around, earphones in, ignoring him for several minutes until he finally makes eye contact and Sascha can arch an eyebrow at him.

“What?” Grigor snaps, and for the first time, Sascha is really nervous. He opens his mouth, closes it, and frowns.

He’s not sure what he’s going to say. “What did I do wrong?” comes out. “I thought—it was good, right? We were good?”

Grigor stops and properly looks at him for a long time. “Aw, shit,” he says, at last. “I’m a dick.”

Sascha blinks. “Um.”

“Ugh, I was freaking out for no reason, wasn’t I?” Grigor groans, rubbing his face.

“Maybe?”

“Fuck,” Grigor says. He laughs a little. “So… you were totally on board with the ‘screwing a dude’ thing? We were, like, there together, or shit?”

Sascha frowns deeper. “Did you think I was gay panicking again?” he says. Grigor looks away, and Sascha’s jaw drops. “You fucking  _did_. Why?” He thinks about it, catalogues the series of events, and catches on… “Cause I turned you over?”

Grigor turns red. “You came really fast when you couldn’t see my face anymore,” he mumbles.

Sascha gapes. “I had a fucking  _cramp_ , you absolute fucker, and like, did you not notice I was  _holding your hands?_! This is worse than when I  _actually_ had a gay panic. I’m done with gay panics, okay? I had one that _one_ time and that was it. I’m barely an adult, I’m allowed to have, like, a crisis of sexuality or whatever but like I had that way before I was even ready to start  _thinking_  about  _screwing a dude_. Did you not fucking notice that we made out after, and then you slept in my bed? ”

Grigor is shaking and it takes Sascha a second to realize he’s about to piss himself laughing.

“Don’t laugh, asshole. You made me think you hated me,” Sascha says, but there’s a smile on his lips even though he’s fighting it. “But yes, you were freaking out by yourself over there over nothing.”

Grigor puts down his phone and, still giggling, wraps his arms around Sascha’s torso while Sascha rants. Sascha bends down to kiss Grigor, and if the words  _coming home_  pop uninvited into his brain he’ll never admit it. That’s some romance novel bullshit.

“So,” he says, when they’re horizontal but still clothed, having languidly been making out for probably three months. “Was it good?”

“Mm,” says Grigor. “Yeah.”

“Better than that other guy?”

Grigor snorts. “You wouldn’t have had to do much to be better than him, Sasch, so let’s not even compare whatever he was doing with actual good sex.”

Sascha preens, a little bit. “Good,” he says, firmly. Then he pauses. “Was the freaking out a little bit about that other guy?”

Grigor sighs. He buries his face in Sascha’s chest and says, “Yeah, probably. Also last year I  _thought_ I was offering a BJ to a mostly-straight dude, and look how that turned out.” Grigor grins up at him. “I didn’t sign up for, like, feelings, and shit.”

“Shut up.”

\--

It’s still the early rounds, but whatever, winning easily is still awesome. Dishing out bagel sets en route to the second week is even more awesome. After his third-round win, Sascha lies back, and clutches at Grigor’s hips as Grigor rides him, slow and then fast but always so, so good.

\--

Over the course of the fortnight, Sascha becomes the world’s leading expert on Grigor Dimitrov’s prostate. They have to be careful because, as they learn pretty early on, if Grigor goes too hard before a match, he gets sore and can barely run. It _would_ be hilarious if it didn’t cost him ranking points, but, on the nights that they have time, Grigor begs for it. And Sascha gladly gives it to him. He even does  _research_ , figures out how to take Grigor apart from the inside out, becomes fascinated, and even obsessed, with all the ways he can make sure Grigor never doubts him again, never thinks he would do anything but protect him.

\--

“Fuck,” Grigor says one lazy afternoon; he’s stretched out on the bed in his hotel room, because Dani only feels like practicing in the evening, and they have until after dinner to put their pants back on. “I wish you’d let me do that for you.”

“What?” Sascha says. “You get me off all the time. World’s greatest cocksucker, remember? No woman alive, yadda, yadda.”

Grigor giggles like a fucking child, and it isn’t endearing at all. “It’s not the same, Sascha,” he insists. “Without the butt thing, I mean.”

“The butt thing,” Sascha echoes, because Grigor is twelve.

But Grigor just sighs, “Yeah,” like those are the best three words in the entire English language.

“I think I’m gonna be okay without the butt thing,” Sascha says.

Grigor scoffs. “Like you were okay without the cocksucking?”

“Shut up,” Sascha replies, but Grigor has a point.

\--

“Is the butt thing really that great?” Sascha asks, later, but Grigor’s pretty much still incoherent, drunk on the afterglow, and the answer is kind of obvious.

\--

In the end, it happens, because Sascha can deny Grigor nothing at all. Grigor tells him to lie back, relax, that he’ll take care of everything, but Sascha is nervous—about  _this_ , of all things. Maybe it’s his last psychological block or whatever, but he’s tense. He tries to loosen up his muscles, to get into it, relax around even one little finger to the first knuckle but it’s… god, it’s like… like he’s watching porn and someone might be looking over his shoulder? He can’t even think how to describe it.

He lets out a frustrated breath through his nose and Grigor kisses his way up Sascha’s body. “It’s okay,” he says. “You don’t have to.” But now Sascha thinks he’s not enjoying this for the wrong reason, thinks it’s fucking dumb that  _anything_  Grigor does with his hands could make him uncomfortable, but he can’t articulate the thought, so he lets Grigor blow him instead, returns the favour, and barely sleeps.

\--

“I want to try again,” he says, a couple of days later.

Grigor frowns, but catches on pretty quick. “I thought you didn’t like it,” he said.

But today, Sascha is determined to explain himself. He shakes his head. “It was in my head, I’m sure,” he says. “It was like… I mean, I like it when you touch me, obviously. It felt like the reason I didn’t like it was in my head, it was nerves, you know? But…”

Grigor tilts his head at him. “Or it could be you just don’t like it.”

“Could be,” Sascha admits. “But I don’t think so.”

“So, why do you think it would be different if we did it again?”

Sascha shrugs, looks down. “Maybe it won’t,” he says. “But I… I felt… guilty.” It’s the word he’s been looking for, even if it doesn’t encompass everything. “Weirdly guilty, and I shouldn’t. Even if I don’t actually like the butt thing, I shouldn’t feel like  _that_ about it.”

“Shouldn’t, eh?”

“I’m over the panic, asshole, and you should  _get_ over it.”

Grigor kisses him. “Not totally over it, maybe?”

“Maybe,” Sascha says. “But I wanna be.”

\--

Sascha manages to injure himself ahead of his quarterfinal match and has to withdraw, which, well… kill him. He texts Grigor because he needs cheering up, and tells him to bring Chinese food. Once they’re done eating, Grigor shoves him onto the bed and rides him within an inch of his sanity.

\--

Grigor has a day off ahead of his semifinal match and insists on dedicating pretty much the entire evening to Sascha’s “butt issues,” as he absolutely refuses to stop calling them. He lays back and lets Grigor suck him until he squirms, which turns out to be a distraction, because Grigor slips his finger in somewhere during proceedings and then just leaves it there as he licks and sucks and does all the clever things his mouth can do.

“Fuck, I’m close,” Sascha huffs, and Grigor withdraws his mouth and looks up at him, big brown eyes full of something dark and mischievous.

“Feeling okay?” Grigor asks.

Sascha nods. “Yeah, good job, nice trick,” he says. “Now do something.”

Grigor grins and moves his finger, and it’s… well, it’s  _weird_ , but Sascha feels no overwhelming mortification over it, just an echo of the feeling, and he’s stubborn enough to push through it. A few experimental thrusts of a single finger and Sascha stabilizes, tells himself it’s just a body part in his body part and really starts to  _believe_ it, and then Grigor brushes against what must be, what  _has to_ be, Sascha’s prostate.

“ _Oh_ ,” he says, out loud, because it’s the only thought with room to exist in his brain. “Oh, that… oh.”

“Better?” Grigor asks him.

“ _Yeah._ ”

He arches off the bed and Grigor is gentle, lets him ease into it because it’s overwhelming and that part of his brain that  _was_ still hung up on fuck knows what is slow to let go. But then all at once he needs more, asks for it, lies back and gasps as Grigor’s fingers push sparks up his spine.

\--

Grigor beating Anderson in the semifinals is amazing, and the fact that he got it done in straight sets without playing a single tiebreak is incredible, but getting crushed by Roger in the final is so dejecting that Sascha doesn’t even know what to say to him. He and Grigor will get to play plenty of other tournaments this year, but for now, it’s gut wrenching, heartbreaking, every cliché the media wants to print. Sascha tells himself the season’s just started, and they have next week, and the week after that, and the week after that. He presses a soft kiss to Grigor’s temple as they fall asleep wound up in each other’s limbs, silent, because nothing needs to be said.

 


End file.
